


life (a love to share)

by winter_hiems



Category: L'Homme qui rit | The Man Who Laughs - Victor Hugo, The Grinning Man - Philips & Teitler/Grose & Morris & Philips & Teitler/Grose
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Blind Character, Body Image, Canon Disabled Character, Carrying, Dancing, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Holding Hands, Intimacy, Isolation, Kissing, Light Angst, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, Self-Esteem Issues, Touch-Starved, Touching, canon blind character, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25896544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_hiems/pseuds/winter_hiems
Summary: When Dea gets lost in the snow, she stumbles upon a castle and its single solitary resident…(in other words, a Grinning Man Beauty and the Beast AU)
Relationships: Dea/Gwynplaine | Grinpayne | Gwynplaine Trelaw
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

Dea wasn’t used to making this journey alone. 

She’d been walking to the nearest town and back every market day ever since she turned sixteen and Ursus deemed her old enough to go out on her own. Before then, he had come with her, but the need for money meant that as soon as she was old enough for him to be reasonably sure of her safety, he’d let her make the journey with only Homo for company. Walking around with a large black wolf was an effective deterrent for anyone who might consider robbing or exploiting a blind girl. 

While Dea walked to the nearest town, Ursus would take the cart to the second-nearest town, and they’d both spend the day selling the medicines he cooked up. If money hadn’t been so dear they would have probably stayed together, but things were as they were, and two people selling in two different towns brought in more coin than two people selling in one. 

At the end of the day they’d both return home to the small house they shared in a tiny village and count up the day’s earnings. It wasn’t a lot, but it kept clothes on their back and food in the pantry, so things could have been worse. 

Lately, things had been getting slightly worse. 

It wasn’t the sales; they had enough money. It was the village. 

Small villages bred slights and superstitions, which meant that a man with a blind daughter and a pet wolf might start finding himself blamed for all kinds of things. When the village people saw Dea walking around with only Homo guiding her, they whispered of dark things; spirits and familiars. 

So, for the protection of both herself and Homo, Ursus had decided that the two of them needed to be seen apart from each other. Homo would be chained up in their cottage’s small garden, except for when Ursus let him loose for supervised walks. Dea, meanwhile, would find her way with a walking stick. 

She could do it, it wasn’t too hard. The ways around the village and the road to the town were so familiar that getting lost was almost impossible for her. But she missed Homo’s company, the sound of his footsteps beside her. The walking stick felt odd in her hand, and she was still trying to figure out the best angle at which to hold it. She could still get around, but it wasn’t the same. 

Dea shivered and pulled her cloak tighter around herself. The first of the winter snow had arrived a few weeks ago, and it had done nothing but get colder ever since. It had started snowing again at midday, so that by the time she’d started walking home her stick made a soft crunching noise every time she brought it down in front of her. 

Her cloak was getting soaked through as well, which only made the cold bite harder. Snowflakes were landing on her face and melting down her cheeks like tears. 

She kept walking, picking up her feet in the thickening snow. The icy air burned her lungs. 

How long had she been walking? Dea knew how long the journey would take on a normal day, but the snow was slowing her down. She hoped that Ursus didn’t worry if she came home late. 

Suddenly, Dea brought her foot down and found a large stone. It turned her ankle and she fell sideways. She tumbled down a hill, rolling over and over, lost her stick, kept falling. 

When she came to rest at the bottom, she spent several minutes sitting in a snowdrift, wincing at her bruises. By the time she felt recovered enough to stand, she was stiff and sore. She hadn’t even known that the road was at the top of a hill – she’d never strayed from the path before. 

Tentatively, her hands outstretched, Dea walked in the direction of the hill. 

Except she couldn’t find it. The ground didn’t slope upwards, it stayed level. Somehow she’d got turned around. 

She returned to the snowdrift, picked another direction, tried again. No hill. All she found was the smooth trunk of a tree that her fingers brushed, warning her just in time to avoid walking into it. 

Now she started to feel afraid. She was alone in a forest, and she didn’t know which direction led to home. She didn’t even know how far away from the road she was. 

For a moment she considered staying still, but she quickly changed her mind. In this cold, staying still probably wasn’t a good idea. But which direction should she walk? What if she only got more lost? 

Then again, she couldn’t get more lost than she already was. If Ursus came looking for her he’d have to search the whole road from the village to the town, and he might search the town as well. It could take him days to find her. 

Dea picked a direction, stretched out her hands, and started walking. 

*

She kept tripping. The cold had made her clumsy. 

Her hands were freezing, and she had to keep flexing her fingers to keep them from growing stiff. Dea wanted to breathe on them to warn them, but she needed them out in front of her so that she didn’t walk into anything. 

She was tired, too. She must have been walking for ages. It had grown colder. Perhaps that meant the sun was setting, or that it was already night. 

Her cloak and the hem of her skirt were both soaked in snow. The wet fabric was heavy; it dragged her down. 

When Dea’s hands found a sudden obstruction, at first she couldn’t tell what it was, until she recognised that the texture under her fingers was stone. She’d found a wall. 

A wall meant people, meant civilisation. 

Keeping one hand on the wall, Dea walked along it, so tired now that she had to lean on it for support. 

Time passed, but she didn’t know how long. It kept getting colder. Her head drooped. 

When the wall disappeared from under her fingers she fell to her knees, snow soaking into her skirt even more. She stood, groped, found the wall. What she’d first assumed to be a corner turned out to be an indented gate of scrolled metalwork. Dea shook it and it rattled but did not open. She felt around, wincing at the cold of the metal, and eventually found a chain and padlock. 

She’s found civilisation, but was locked out. 

Dea yawned. She was tired, so very tired. Swaying on her feet. 

Maybe she could stay here for the night. She was close to finding someone who could guide her home, surely it could wait for a little while. 

Wrapping her cloak around her, Dea curled up at the bottom of the gate. The snow felt almost soft beneath her, gentle as it fell on top of her. 

She slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was pretty much inevitable that I would write a TGM Beauty and the Beast AU, even though I’ve already written and Eros and Psyche AU, which inspired the tale of Beauty and the Beast anyway.
> 
> In the latter part of this fic, Dea is suffering from hypothermia. She’s tired, dizzy, losing her coordination. But she’ll be okay. After all, someone’s going to find her in the snow :)
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome <3
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. I am not making money from this work.


	2. Chapter 2

A man’s voice jolted her from sleep. “Wake up, _please_ wake up!” 

“Mmm?” said Dea, not wanting to be awake. 

“Oh, thank god. Can you stand?” Whoever he was, he sounded very worried. 

“Don’t know,” mumbled Dea. 

“Alright. I’m – I’ll help you up and we’ll see.” 

A pair of arms wrapped around her and pulled her slowly to her feet. Dea staggered and nearly fell, but he caught her just in time. She found herself leaning against him, his arms around her, her face pressed against his coat. He was warm. 

“On second thoughts,” said whoever-it-was, “I think I’ll carry you.” 

An arm swept under her legs, and then she was in his arms. Still feeling very drowsy, Dea was perfectly content to let him carry her where he would. She closed her eyes and let herself be lulled by his footsteps crunching in the snow. 

She was awakened from her doze when he set her down again on hard stone. 

“Sorry,” he murmured, “I can’t get the door open while I’m carrying you.” 

The turn of a key and a creaking sound, then he helped her up and into a place of glorious warmth. 

(It was not in fact very warm at all, but to Dea who had been freezing outside all night, it was practically tropical.) 

He guided her across the room. “Here, sit down.” 

Dea’s hand found a comfortable sofa, and she sat, turning her head towards where she guessed the stranger stood. “Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, sounding a little shy, “I couldn’t leave you out there.” A pause. “My name’s Gwynplaine, by the way.” 

“I’m Dea.” 

“Pleased to meet you, Dea. I – you must still be very cold, I’ll get some blankets. You can stoke up the fire if you like.” 

Dea was aware of a warmth to her right, but she wasn’t sure enough of the specifics to chance it. “I – you’ll need to tell me exactly where it is. I’m blind.” 

“Oh. Sorry. I’ll do it, then.” Movement near her; the sound of logs being put on a fire. “I’ll get blankets,” said Gwynplaine, and Dea heard his footsteps going away from her. 

As soon as he was gone, she realised in what a bad way she’d been in when Gywnplaine found her. She felt cold to her core and she couldn’t stop shivering. 

With numb fingers, Dea clumsily undid the tie on her cloak and set it aside – it was so wet that she would probably be better off without it, and she wouldn’t need it if Gwynplaine was bringing her blankets. 

A few minutes later he returned, set down a pile of blankets on the sofa beside her, and helped Dea wrap them around herself until she sat in a cocoon of soft warmth. 

“Are you hungry?” he asked gently. “I can heat up some soup if you like.” 

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” 

So Gwynplaine went away, returning with a warm cup of soup which he pressed into her hands before he sat beside her. It was warm and filling and lightly spiced with pepper. Dea sipped it, enjoying the warmth of the cup in her hands. 

“So where am I?” she asked. 

“You’re in Castle Clancharlie,” said Gwynplaine. 

Dea had heard that there was a castle some distance from her village, but she’d never heard its official name, and she had always assumed that it was much further away from her home than it apparently was. She’d also thought that it was uninhabited. “I didn’t know that anyone lived here.” 

“Just me,” he replied. 

“Really? Do you look after it for the lord?” 

“Ah,” said Gwynplaine, sounding slightly awkward. “I suppose I do, technically. I am the lord.” 

Dea felt herself blush. “Oh. Sorry. My lord.” She shouldn’t have been talking to him like that, so casually, that wasn’t how you were supposed to talk to lords. Growing up, Ursus had drilled into her the ways that the upper classes could punish those who didn’t behave with a proper degree of deference, and now, the first time Dea had ever met someone of a higher social degree than herself, she’d messed it up. 

“Please don’t call me that,” said Gwynplaine. “I’m barely a lord. I’ve only been to parliament once, when I came of age, and that was over three years ago now.” 

So he was twenty-four. Not that much older than Dea. 

“Really,” he continued, “I’m not much of a lord at all.” 

Relieved that he wasn’t pulling rank on her, Dea drank the rest of her soup in silence. Once she’d finished it, Gwynplaine took the cup away. “Do you feel any better?” 

“Yes, thank you.” The shaking was nowhere near as bad as it had been. “I don’t want to take up any more of your time. And I ought to be going home anyway, my father will be wondering where I am. If you could just show me to the nearest road…” Dea pushed back the blankets, stood, wobbled, was caught by Gwynplaine and helped back into her seat. 

“Your hands are freezing,” he said, “I don’t think you should go back out there. It’s still snowing, and your clothes are soaked. Besides, you haven’t recovered from the cold yet.” 

Dea had to admit that she still wasn’t feeling at her best. But she didn’t want to make Gwynplaine uncomfortable. After all, if a lord lived in a castle on his own without even any servants, then the solitude was definitely a personal choice. “I don’t want to impose on you,” she said. 

“Not at all,” he replied. “I’d be glad of the company. I had a delivery of food last week, but soon winter will be setting in and the roads will be blocked. I didn’t think I’d see anyone else until the spring.” There was something wistful in his voice. It seemed like he really did want her to stay. 

“Well if you’re sure… would it be alright if I stayed the night? Then if I’m better in the morning, I’ll go home then.” 

“Of course you can stay the night.” The sofa shifted as Gwynplaine stood. “I’ll prepare a bedroom for you.” He tucked the blankets more closely around her, and then he was gone. 

*

The bedroom that Gwynplaine put Dea in was at least four times the size of the one she had at home. 

He showed her around it so that she knew where everything was, then offered her a change of clothes so that the ones she was wearing could dry. 

At first Dea didn’t want to trouble him, but her dress was so sodden that she accepted. He brought her a dress and a chemise to go under it – “They might not fit you very well, sorry.” – then left so that she could change, informing her as he went that his room was just across the hallway from hers, if she needed anything. 

The chemise was perhaps the softest thing that Dea had ever touched. She couldn’t even begin to guess at the thread count. She changed quickly, revelling in the sensation of the smooth cloth on her skin. 

Gwynplaine had built up the fire in her bedroom, so she dragged a (velvet) chair in front of the fireplace and laid out her wet clothing on the chair so that it could dry. 

That done, she set to properly exploring her room. 

It held wonders for her. 

The texture of the wallpaper under her fingertips. 

The polished wood of the dressing table. 

The smooth satin of the bedspread contrasted with the ridges of thread embroidered into it. 

It had an adjoining bathroom, and Dea felt the porcelain of the bath under her fingertips, a world away from the rough tin of the tub she bathed in at home. 

Why would a lord, with access to such riches, choose to live alone, with not even a servant to wait on him? It was especially strange given how welcoming he’d been to Dea. 

Or perhaps it was some kind of eccentricity. Perhaps he would be able to tolerate her for a short period of time but would still want her to leave soon. 

She did have to leave soon. It wouldn’t be right to keep her father waiting, wondering where she was. Tomorrow morning, Gwynplaine would take her to the nearest main road and she’d set off home, and that would be an end to it. 

Still, Dea knew that even after she’d left, she would still sometimes think of the mysterious Lord Gwynplaine, all alone in his castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Castle Clancharlie is something in book canon that Gwynplaine inherits from his father. Of course, if we’re doing book canon then Gwynplaine should also be called ‘Fermain Clancharlie’, but I’m not cruel enough to do that to him, so we’re going with the much more sensible name ‘Gwynplaine Trelaw’.


	3. Chapter 3

When Dea woke, she did not immediately move. The bed was so comfortable, the sheets softer than anything she’d ever experienced before. Only thoughts of Ursus’ worry could rouse her, so she got out of bed, washed, and dressed in her old clothes, already missing the soft, fine fabric of the clothes she’d borrowed from Gwynplaine. 

That done, she knocked on Gwynplaine’s bedroom door, and the two of them went downstairs to the kitchen, Dea’s hand on Gwynplaine’s arm. 

He made porridge, warm and filling, and after that Dea pulled on her cloak and Gwynplaine opened the front door. 

“Dea, I’m not sure if today is a good day for you to leave,” he said, as a chill breeze swept into the room, carrying with it a few flakes of snow that settled on Dea’s bare hands. 

“Why? What’s wrong.” 

“Here,” said Gwynplaine. He took her hand lightly and lowered it in the direction of the doorway. 

Dea felt the tingling coldness of the snow, well over a foot above the ground. “That’s quite deep,” she said in dismay. 

“It’s as deep as that as far as the eye can see,” he told her. “There must have been a blizzard in the night. Usually it doesn’t snow this heavily so early in the year, but it seems we’ve been unlucky. You can’t possibly travel in that, it wouldn’t be safe.” 

“But Ursus – I have to get back to my father.” 

“I know. But I also know how this place gets cut off in the winter. It really wouldn’t be safe for you to go.” 

Dea sighed. “Well, I suppose he wouldn’t want me to put myself in danger. How long do you think it will be until the snow melts?” 

“I… if you’re lucky, a few days. If not – if winter has set in – then you won’t be able to travel until the spring.” 

“He’ll be so worried,” breathed Dea. “If I go missing for months… but I suppose I don’t have any choice.” At least, she consoled herself, Ursus would know that she was alright when she came back. It wasn’t like she’d be gone forever. “Will it be alright if I end up staying for a while?” 

“It will be fine,” said Gwynplaine. “I’ve got enough supplies to last us until the spring.” 

“No, what I meant was, would you be alright with having me here? You live alone, you might not want somebody disturbing that.” 

“I’d be perfectly alright with you staying,” he replied. “Living alone is – I don’t really do it by choice.” 

*

The snow did not clear. Winter had arrived in full force. 

Dea came to terms with the fact that she would be staying until the spring, then set herself the task of learning her way around the castle. 

Strictly speaking, she didn’t need to learn how to get everywhere, but it was a way of passing the time, and Gwynplaine was more than willing to oblige her. Hand in hand, he showed her around. 

They went to the dining room which Gwynplaine never used, preferring to eat in the kitchen; the vast ballroom with its smooth floor; the library; the drawing rooms; the many bedrooms with their furniture all covered up by sheets to keep off the dust. 

He dug out more clothes for her from the back of closets, garments so fine that Dea would never have been able to afford them, not if she pooled her whole year’s earnings. At first she felt she couldn’t accept them, that no common girl should go around wearing silk and satin and lace, but Gwynplaine told her that the only alternative was the stiff black cotton of the maids’ uniforms, and he didn’t want to clothe a guest in servants’ attire. Besides, he told her, it wasn’t as if anyone else was going to wear them. 

As the days passed, Dea truly could not understand Gwynplaine’s isolation. There seemed to be no reason for it. As far as she could tell, he had no fault in intelligence, personality, or manners. He was a good man, so why should he hide himself away in a huge lonely castle? Perhaps he simply did not want to be a lord, and was kept from going among the common people by his inherited title. 

Dea wondered about it, but did not know how to ask, or even if she should. It seemed likely to be a very personal question. Better to avoid pushing the subject. 

*

It was while they were having dinner one night that Dea found out a plausible reason for Gywnplaine’s isolation. 

She’d been telling him about her and Ursus’ business of selling cures, which had turned into a conversation about the fact that very poor people couldn’t afford medicine at all, which turned into Gwynplaine delivering a short, impassioned rant about how much it angered him that there was no kind of universal healthcare for people who couldn’t afford to pay a doctor. 

“But you’re a lord,” said Dea, “Couldn’t you just bring it up in parliament if you wanted to make a change?” 

Gwynplaine sighed. “Do you remember when I said that I’d been to parliament exactly once?” 

“Yes.” 

“I – I’d just come of age, just turned twenty-one. So they brought me in and dressed me in a velvet robe and swore me in, then I took my seat in the House of Lords. That day they were voting whether or not to increase the Prince Consort’s annual provision by a hundred thousand pounds.” 

Dea was breathless. “A hundred thousand…” 

“I know,” said Gwynplaine. “Half such a sum could make a world of difference to the poor if it were properly put to use. But they passed it anyway, giving all that money to a man who already had more than he could possibly spend in a lifetime.” A pause. “The way they vote in the House of Lords is that the Lord Chancellor reads out the details of the Bill, then each lord stands up and says whether he is content or not content. I was the eighth man to vote that day, and the only one who said ‘non-content’. They asked me why I wasn’t content, and I told them.” 

There was something awfully defeated in Gwynplaine’s voice. The sound of a man who’d given everything he had to give and failed utterly. “I gave a speech,” he said. “A speech to the House of Lords. I told them of every awful thing that went on in England under their noses. The poverty, the disease, the hideous miscarriages of justice. I knew that it was a lost cause, but I did it anyway. I had to – I had to try something, hope that somehow they would listen and act to make some improvement in the world.” 

“What happened?” said Dea softly, knowing that the answer must contain some form of tragedy. 

“They laughed,” Gwynplaine replied hoarsely. “I poured my soul out that day. Everything that was wrong with the world, everything that I wanted to change, everything that I knew they had the power to change, and they laughed. So I sat down and didn’t say anything else, and when the House adjourned I waited until the room was empty, then I left the House of Lords and left parliament and left Bristol and I never came back.” 

“I’m so sorry,” said Dea as gently as she could. She reached over the table, found his hand, and held it. The two of them were not lord and peasant, not peer and commoner, just a man who’d tried to help those less fortunate than himself in the face of impossible odds and a woman providing comfort. 

“I kept going over it in my head,” he murmured. “What I’d said, the exact wording, trying to see if there was anything I could have done to make them understand, to make them agree. The worst thing was realising that there was nothing I could have done. They didn’t want to hear what I had to say. They hadn’t a shred of empathy for the common people – I don’t think they thought of them as people. So I live here on my own, and I give fair rents to the tenants on my land, and it’s the most good I’ll ever be able to do in the world.” 

No wonder he was all alone. He wasn’t some eccentric holing himself up in the world’s best furnished hermitage, he was an idealist in defeat. No, not even an idealist; wanting to help the poor was practical, possible, and reasonable. He’d told the other lords something that any ordinary, kind person would have understood and agreed with, only to be thwarted by the fact that the other men voting that day had not been ordinary, had never felt the impulse to be kind. 

“You don’t have to hide away here, you know, just because the other lords were awful.” she said, squeezing his hand. “What happened that day wasn’t your fault. Later, once the snow’s cleared, you could come down to the village, meet the people there. You’re perfectly nice, I’m sure they would like you.” Perhaps she could persuade him to visit her once she was back at home with Ursus. Dea liked the idea of it, and it would probably be good for him to get out of the house once in a while, even if his house was a castle. 

When he next spoke, there was a note of something in his voice which sounded a little like despair. “No, Dea. I’m sure it’s very pleasant, but I don’t think visiting your village would work out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The parliament speech is based off the book, when Gwynplaine told it like it is in spectacular fashion.
> 
> The Man Who Laughs is set in 1705. Back then, £100,000 was the equivalent of nearly £24 million.
> 
> In this fic, Bristol is the capital city of England because I prefer the Bristol version of the musical to the London version.


	4. Chapter 4

Gwynplaine sat at his piano, and played, and thought about Dea. 

She’d been staying at the castle for over a month, as the days grew colder and the snows got so deep that they no longer bothered opening the front door to check if travel was viable. 

He had to admit, he was getting used to her, though he knew he shouldn’t. She would leave in the spring, return to her loving father who was probably out of his mind with worry, and there would be no possibility of visiting her in her village. Her father wasn’t blind and would have questions for a man who wanted to visit his daughter, a man who claimed to be a lord but refused to show his face. 

When he’d first seen her he’d been taking an early morning walk, stretching his legs before the snow got too deep to properly leave the house. He’d caught sight of a dark shape by the gates to his grounds, walked towards it, and the second he realised that the shape was a woman he’d pulled his scarf up over the lower half of his face, checking to make sure that there was no possibility of it slipping down. He’d counted himself lucky that it was cold enough that wearing a scarf across his face wouldn’t be questioned by a stranger. 

Of course, he hadn’t needed it. Dea had been unconscious, and even after he woke her she’d been so badly affected by the cold that she hadn’t paid any attention to his clothing, until the final discovery of her blindness had set his mind at ease. She had no way of seeing his disfigurement. There would be no awkward explanations, no need to hide his face. For the first time in his life he’d be able to interact with someone as if he were a normal man with a normal appearance. It had been somewhat thrilling to discover that she’d have to stay with him for at least the next two months. 

He’d miss her once she left. 

These past weeks he’d taken to reading to her in the evenings. Dea liked dark stories with happy endings, but she’d settle for a good tragedy if nothing else was on offer. She found it funny when he changed his voice to fit the characters, so of course he did it as often as he could get away with it. She had a beautiful laugh. 

The rest of Dea was very beautiful as well, but the laugh was special. The laugh meant that in spite of his ruined face and his political disgrace and his years of isolation, he still had what it took to make another person happy. Until Dea arrived, he’d forgotten that, or perhaps he’d never known it. 

Gwynplaine started when he realised that Dea was standing beside him. He hadn’t heard her come in over the sound of the music. Abruptly, he stopped playing. 

“Yes?” 

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to listen to you play.” 

“If you like you can sit next to me. There’s room on the piano stool for two.” 

Gwynplaine moved over to make room, stretched out a hand, and guided Dea to the seat. 

As soon as she was beside him, he regretted it. Dea smelled like lavender and their legs were touching. He shouldn’t have offered her this seat – he should have gone to another room to fetch a chair for her. Having her this close was painfully intimate. How on earth would he be able to focus on his playing now? He couldn’t bear to make a fool of himself in front of Dea. 

Gwynplaine switched to a different song to play. A simple melody which he knew so well that he didn’t need to look at the music for it. The piece that he had the smallest chance of messing up with clumsy, distracted playing. 

After listening for a little while, Dea said, “There’s a song that goes with this, isn’t there?” 

He was about to reply when Dea began to sing. She had a lovely voice, high and clear and full of feeling. Gwynplaine’s nerves were fraying, driving him to distraction. It was all he could do to avoid playing wrong notes. 

Once they’d got to the end of the song, he had an idea which felt incredibly reckless, in spite of the fact that it was only a very small thing indeed. 

He started playing the same song, and when Dea began to sing, Gwynplaine joined in, harmonising. Worried about how Dea might react, he looked over. She was smiling. 

Nobody had ever sung a duet with him before. Nobody had ever wanted to. 

When the song ended, he played another for them to sing together. After that, another. And another. They passed the whole afternoon that way, in happy companionship, filling the room with music. 

*

After that, singing became a part of their routine as well. Gwynplaine had never shared his love of music with anybody before. He hadn’t had the chance. 

Being around Dea made him feel braver. He found himself telling her things that he’d never talked about with anyone before. Among the aristocracy his father’s rebellion and his parents’ subsequent execution were common knowledge, but Dea knew nothing of it until he told her. 

It wasn’t only events in his past that he opened up about. He talked about feelings too. It was one thing to talk about losing his parents, quite another to tell the story of a young boy, a toddler really, curled up under his bed because he’d had a nightmare again and there was no-one there to comfort him. 

(He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that the boy’s face had been wrapped in bandages.) 

In return, Dea told him of her life in the village, the kind of isolation that came not from being blind but from the way that people treated her because she was blind. The way the others the village had behaved: either ignoring her, mocking her, or expecting her to need far more help that she actually did. A tiny country village that couldn’t grasp the concept of a blind woman with independence. 

The two of them had grown close. Very close. Perhaps that would have been inevitable given their long months of being snowed in with no other company, but Gwynplaine wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t simply a case of scarcity of other society; he genuinely enjoyed Dea’s company, wanted to spend as much time with her as possible, liked having her near. 

All those days sitting side by side on the piano stool, their knees touching. 

But in the end, even taking all that into consideration, Gwynplaine could never have anticipated what happened on the day he showed Dea the music box. 

*

It had belonged to his mother, one of the few possessions in the family’s Bristol house that had not been smashed during his parents’ arrest. Its melody was a gentle waltz which Gwyn had always found calming. 

He brought it down from his bedroom to the music room one day to play to Dea. 

There was a gold-plated hand crank on the side, which he wound, then let go so that the box would play. 

Once the last notes had faded, he asked her if she liked it. 

Dea smiled, and said, “It’s beautiful. You could almost dance to it.” 

For the first time in long years of isolation, Gwynplaine dredged up everything he could possibly remember from his childhood dancing lessons. “We could dance, if you like,” he suggested, trying not to sound too hopeful. 

She stood. “Yes, lets.” 

Gwynplaine wound the music box as far as it could go, then he took Dea’s hand, placed his other hand on her waist, told her to put her free hand on his shoulder, and described the steps of a simple waltz. 

She took to it naturally, her hand in his as the music box played its dreamlike song. The dance was slow but somehow Gwynplaine still found himself breathless as they swept each other around the room. Impulsively, Gwynplaine pulled back, twirled Dea, then they were holding each other again. 

As the last notes of the song died out, they slowed, stopped, stood in the middle of the music room still holding each other. Dea brought her hand up to trace his jaw and Gwynplaine froze, partly from shock at someone touching his face, and partly with relief that she hadn’t touched his scars, that she was still ignorant of his condition. 

He could have pulled away, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to lean closer. 

They were kissing before he knew it. Gwynplaine had never imagined that Dea’s lips would be so warm, so soft. His hand was still on Dea’s waist. Her hand slid into his curls, pulling him in deeper. When she brought her other hand up to cup his face, he flinched away before she could make contact. 

She reached for him even as he stepped back. “Gwynplaine? Is something wrong?” 

He kept away from her groping hands. In the large windows of the music room he could see their reflections: Dea, radiant as the stars in lilac silk, and himself, a monster with a smile from ear to ear. “We can’t do this, Dea,” he told her, and fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Running away is book!Gwyn’s 100% tried-and-tested way of dealing with getting overwhelmed by his feelings for Dea.
> 
> It’s both book canon and musical canon that Dea and Gwynplaine have great singing voices.
> 
> In the book, it’s a habit for Gwynplaine and Dea to eat breakfast so close together that their knees touch, however, in this chapter, Gwynplaine is so touch-starved that it’s overwhelming.
> 
> In this fic, after the deaths of his parents, Gwynplaine was raised by royal retainers, but they didn’t really care about him.


	5. Chapter 5

Gwynplaine realised his mistake as soon as Dea knocked on his bedroom door. He should have found a hiding place, some obscure corner of the castle where she might never find him, but in his haste and panic he’d instead run into his bedroom and collapsed on the bed. 

“Gwynplaine, are you in here?” 

Why delay the inevitable? It would still be some weeks before the roads were clear enough for Dea to leave. He couldn’t keep the truth from her forever. “Yes, I’m here.” 

She took careful, unsure steps across the carpet until she found the bed and sat beside him. “What’s wrong?” 

The look on her face could have set him to weeping there and then, but Dea might notice if he cried, so he held the teardrops back. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Dea. I’ve lied by omission.” 

A look of mild horror passed over her face. “What haven’t you told me?” 

He swallowed, and began. “You already know that my parents were executed for rebellion against the king. I was left alive because of my youth and the fact that I was the last of my line, but the king didn’t want to be viewed as soft, so he decided that I too was to be made an example of. He had them – he had a surgeon cut my face. Cut it up like a smile. That’s why the lords laughed at me, it wasn’t just what I was saying, it was how I looked. Like a carnival freak show. That’s why I don’t go down into the village, or keep servants, or spend time with anyone, ever. When I get food deliveries, I cover my face so they can’t see me. I can’t bear the way people react to my face, Dea. Some flinch, some laugh, and either way it’s awful.” 

He held back a sob by sheer force of will. “And then I found you in the snow, and you couldn’t see me, and I didn’t tell you how I looked because – because for the first time in my life, I could talk to someone as if I was normal. As if I looked normal. You didn’t know what you were kissing, Dea. It wouldn’t be right for me to let you kiss me when you didn’t – didn’t know.” 

He was crying now, but crying silently, and Dea was unaware. 

Dea slid her fingers across the bedspread until she found Gwynplaine’s hand, then she held it tightly. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Gwynplaine.” 

“I – I barely remember. They sedated me for the operation, and I was so young… two, I think. It did hurt afterwards, but I just sort of stayed curled up in the room they were keeping me in until it passed. I really don’t remember it very well at all.” 

“That doesn’t make it right,” Dea breathed. “Nobody should ever – they should never have done that to you.” 

“The king ordered it,” Gwynplaine replied. “It wasn’t – there wasn’t anything anyone could have done to stop it.” 

She kissed the back of his hand, and he pulled away saying, “Dea, I’ve already told you what I am, you shouldn’t do that, you wouldn’t want to do that if you could see me.” 

Dea stretched out her arm, palm up. “Gwynplaine, please.” 

After a moment’s hesitation, he put his hand in hers again. This might be the last intimacy he ever had with another human being. He might as well let it last. 

“I don’t care that you have scars,” Dea said, holding his hand. “I’m sorry that you have them, of course I am – I’m very sorry about what was done to you. But that doesn’t change how I feel.” 

“It should,” he told her. “Dea, I’m ugly. I’m hideous. You know that, you shouldn’t…” he searched for the right word, “shouldn’t want me. There’s no reason for you to want me.” 

She squeezed his hand. “You saved my life when I was out in the snow. Am I just supposed to forget that, and every kindness you’ve shown me since? You’re a good man, Gwynplaine. Why shouldn’t I want a good man?” 

“But…” he let the single word hang in the air. He didn’t know what to say next, didn’t know how to end this conversation, didn’t even know how he wanted the conversation to end. 

Dea brought up her other hand, held it about a foot away from his face. “May I…?” 

With the attitude of a man putting his head into a noose, Gwynplaine pressed his scarred cheek against Dea’s outstretched palm. Gently, delicately, she traced the ridges of his scars, then brushed her fingertips over his lips as she investigated the other side of his face. The scars weren’t quite symmetrical, but there was more than enough of them on either side of his mouth for Gwynplaine to know that Dea was getting a fair understanding of their extent and severity. 

Her thumb brushed a drop of wetness from his cheek. “Gwynplaine, are you crying?” 

“Just a little,” he admitted. 

Dea pulled him into her arms. Before he could stop himself he was crying harder, face pressed into her hair, his body shaking with each sob, which only made the sobbing worse. He couldn’t even weep prettily. 

She held him close, stroked his hair, murmured gentle words that he couldn’t properly hear, kissed his cheek so quickly that he couldn’t tell if her lips had met scars or skin. 

A long time had passed by the time he’d cried himself out. He pulled back a little, but not so far that he was extricated from Dea’s arms. His cheeks were dry with salt. 

“I…” he began, then faltered, lost for words. 

“It’s alright, Gwynplaine,” said Dea, kissing him softly. 

He kissed her back, trying not to choke on the guilt. 

*

Over the next few weeks, he kept asking her if she was sure, and Dea kept saying yes, and as a result, their friendship of the past two months developed into something decidedly more intimate. 

Her time in the castle had given Dea a good enough understanding of its layout that she could find her way without assistance, but she started taking his hand anyway, not for guidance but for the simple pleasure of holding hands with Gwynplaine. Occasionally, she was the guide, enthusiastically pulling him in the direction she wanted to go, and Gwyn was more than happy to be led. 

There were other changes. In the evenings, instead of sitting on separate sofas while Gwynplaine read aloud from some sensational novel or other, they curled up together, Dea practically in his lap. Occasionally he was so distracted that he fumbled over the words, overcome by the warm presence of Dea leaning against him, the two of them sharing a blanket. 

But by far the greatest change was the kissing. 

Every day. Multiple times a day. A kiss in the morning, and one before they parted to go to bed. She kissed his lips, his cheek, his hand when she was holding it. In an hour with Dea he would receive more affection than he’d thought he’d ever get in his entire lifetime. 

Gwynplaine kept trying to remind her: he was disfigured, scarred, ugly. Dea didn’t care. Sometimes she even argued back, called him handsome, called him beautiful, and he couldn’t tell whether those words hurt or helped. Either way it made his heart beat faster. 

Even after hours and days of it, he still found himself surprised to have Dea stretch up on her toes for a kiss. (She was much shorter than him. Last week they’d discovered that if she stood one stair above him, she would only be slightly shorter than him, but they couldn’t always kiss on a convenient staircase.) 

Some days, he was even brave enough to initiate a kiss. She always beamed at him after something like that, which was a reward in itself. 

He doubted that he’d ever be completely used to it; being kissed, being held by her, being loved. 

That was probably a good thing. Spring was fast approaching, and then Dea would leave, returning to her father in the small village where Gwynplaine wouldn’t be able to visit without it being commented on. 

*

On the day when the snow had finally thawed, Dea dressed in her old clothes, Gwynplaine pulled on sturdy boots and a coat and a long red scarf, and they set off in the direction of the main road, Dea’s hand on his arm. 

Once they arrived at it, they parted. Gwynplaine gave her one last long, lingering kiss before they pulled away. 

“I’ll visit you,” Dea promised. “It might not be for a week or two, but I’ll visit, Gwynplaine. I promise.” 

“I’ll wait for you,” he said softly. 

After that, he drew back and pulled up the red scarf across his face, in case some pedestrian might come across them on the road. 

Dea turned away and started on her way. He’d given her a walking stick that he’d found in an old wardrobe, and it tapped on the frozen earth as she made her way home. 

He watched her until she disappeared around a bend in the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, Gwynplaine’s disfigurement is more like in the book; specifically ordered by the king.


	6. Chapter 6

The messenger came in the middle of a light spring rain. He looked Ursus up and down with the look of someone who wasn’t quite sure if they’d found the right place, but his message was for Dea, daughter of Ursus, so whatever he thought about the recipient of the message went unsaid. 

“I carry a message from Lord Gwynplaine Trelaw, to be told to the woman Dea, who lives here.” 

“Then tell it,” said Ursus. “I’ll pass it on to her.” Dea was playing with Homo in the garden. He didn’t intend to call her in to hear whatever the messenger had to say. 

“Lord Trelaw regrets to inform your daughter that the newly crowned Queen Angelica has summoned him to the capital, and as a result he will not be at Castle Clancharlie for however long his business in the capital takes. It may be quite some time. He, however, wishes to inform your daughter that if she desires to see him then he would be more than happy to arrange transport to bring her to Bristol. Lord Trelaw also said that if your daughter has any message for him then she may give it to me, and I shall take it to him.” 

Ursus nodded. “There will be no reply.” He shut the door. 

Dea’s absence of well over two months had frayed his nerves bare. The fact that she’d returned alive and well had been more than overshadowed by the fact that she’d been staying with a lord for all that time. 

Ursus knew plenty about lords. He’d once seen a prince gift a gold-and-glass lamp to a church while, outside, young children played barefoot in the street. From what Dea had told him, this Lord Trelaw must have been some kind of eccentric to live all alone. By some miracle, Dea had survived her stay in the castle with her honour unviolated, but at the end of the day, she was blind. A man as singular as Lord Trelaw could have played any number of tricks on her with Dea remaining blissfully unaware. 

When she’d returned home, Dea had told Ursus of her intention of visiting Gwynplaine in a few weeks. Urus had cautioned her: just because the lord said she could visit did not necessarily mean that he wanted her to, or that such a visit would be a good idea. He knew she hadn’t listened to him. He also knew that the fact that a messenger had been sent to his daughter was not a good sign. Just because Dea hadn’t been prevailed upon yet by this lord didn’t mean that such an attempt might not happen in the future. 

No, better to let Dea think that her friendly lord had forgotten her. Nothing good happened to commoners who tried to mix with gentry, and especially not to young women meeting solitary lords. 

*

He wasn’t there. 

When she’d entered the castle, using the keys that Gwynplaine had given her, she’d called his name, expecting him to come to her from whichever room he might be in. 

There had been no reply. 

Dea had searched the castle from bottom to top, knocking on the closed doors then opening them after receiving no reply. She even checked the guest rooms with their dust sheets and the beds that had not been slept in for years. 

After that, she checked the grounds, using her cane to find the way, calling for him. No answer came. All she found were some hedges and a lake that got the end of her cane wet. 

Gwynplaine wasn’t there. 

Why would he leave? He hadn’t left the castle in years. Aside from Dea, the only person he ever talked to in that time was the man who brought the food every week in the spring, summer, and autumn. 

There was no reason for him to leave, no possible explanation. Besides, he’d invited her to come over, he’d been expecting her. He wouldn’t just go away somewhere without telling her that her visit couldn’t go ahead as they’d planned. 

Briefly, Dea’s mind gave over to panic, the possibility that Gwynplaine had gone out in the woods and got so badly hurt that he couldn’t return home, but she forced those thoughts out of her mind. He was young and strong, and besides, if he was in such a state then there would be nothing Dea could do to find him. 

She’d come back later and see if he was still gone. 

*

A week later, the castle was still empty. 

*

He missed her. 

He missed her smiles and her singing and her kisses. 

The capital had been a whirlwind. He’d meet the queen, discovering that unlike her father she genuinely wanted to improve the lives of her subjects, then they’d spend days sequestered in one of the palace’s studies, writing up plans for social housing, schools, healthcare. It had been exhausting, put also probably one of the best things he’d ever done. Angelica was strange in many ways, but her strangeness meant that she didn’t care either way if he covered his face or not. (In the end he kept it covered. The servants and other nobles wouldn’t stop flinching.) 

Throughout all of it, he’d missed Dea. At the end of each day he would return to his apartments in the palace, exhausted, wanting to lie down with his head in her lap, tell her about his day. He’d open his mouth to ask her opinion on something but she wouldn’t be there. 

He missed her. 

*

It was a clear spring day, and warm enough that Gwynplaine wore no coat over his shirt and waistcoat. He was dressed finer than he might have done on a normal day, though not quite as formally as his court regalia. 

There was no logic to dressing like this. He had no plans for meeting with Dea. 

The messenger he’d sent had been told that she had no reply for him. Not a word. He supposed that it was inevitable: she’d returned home to her father, and had time to reflect on the winter she’d spent with him. In all likelihood she’d come to her senses about having a relationship with a scarred recluse and had decided to cut ties. 

Which didn’t change the fact that he missed her. 

So in the end he decided on a compromise between never seeing her again and running to her village to fall at her feet: he would walk to her village, and if she was out in the open then he’d look at her briefly, but after that he’d return home without talking to her. 

Simple. 

Agonizing. 

He drew a few curious looks as he walked through the tiny village. A stranger in fine clothing with a scarf across the lower half of his face was bound to attract attention, but he was relieved to find that there was nobody looking at him by the time he reached Dea’s house. 

He was in luck; she was sitting on a bench in the small garden behind the cottage, her head bowed, humming a tune. After a moment he recognized it as the tune played by his mother’s music box. Was she thinking of him? 

Spellbound, he took a few steps towards her. Dea’s head shot up. “Gwynplaine?” 

“Dea,” he stammered, panicking. “I…” 

He was trying to think up some kind of excuse for his presence in the village, as well as an apology for disturbing her, when he realised that she was beaming at him. 

“It is you,” she said, walking over to the fence near where he stood, head slightly tilted, listening. She stretched her hands out over the top of the fence. “Where are you?” 

For an instant, Gwynplaine contemplated turning around and bolting back to the castle, but instead he reached for her, and Dea took his hands in hers. 

“How did you know it was me?” he asked. 

“I recognised your footsteps.” 

She pulled him along the fence until they reached a gate, which she opened with one hand, keeping hold of him with the other. 

“Come in, I missed you so much.” The gate swung closed behind Gwyn so that they were now both standing in Dea’s garden. “Where were you?” she asked, “I went to the castle a few weeks after I came home, but you weren’t there.” 

“You didn’t get my message?” 

Dea frowned. “What message?” 

“I sent a messenger to tell you that the new queen had called me to the capital. I… Dea, she listened to me! She agrees with me, all my ideas on social change, she wants to put them into action. I’ve been in Bristol these last few weeks – I only just got back. Did you really not get my message?” 

She shook her head, still frowning slightly. “No… I was worried that you’d just decided to leave. That you’d go someplace I couldn’t find you and you’d forget me.” 

They were still holding hands. “Dea, I could never forget you. When I didn’t get a reply to my message… I was worried that you’d changed your mind about us.” 

“I won’t change my mind,” Dea said softly. She reached for his face with one hand, encountered the scarf, murmured, “May I?” and Gwynplaine used his free hand to tug it down. Her fingers ghosted over his scars. “I won’t change my mind,” she repeated. “I love you, Gwynplaine.” 

At first he could say nothing, until he finally managed, “Dea, I love you too.” 

She laughed quietly. He’d missed her laugh. She was still touching his face, his exposed face, and for once Gwynplaine wasn’t afraid that a passer-by might see it. 

He cupped her face in both his hands, his fingers sliding into her hair. She took her hand away from his face and held his wrist lightly, inviting. Dea’s other hand reached up until her fingers found his chin, guiding his mouth to hers. As soon as their lips touched he wanted to close all further distance between them. After being so far away from her in the capital, even now that their lips were touching, a few inches of space between their bodies seemed too much. 

Dea seemed to feel the same thing, and they slid into each other’s arms, lightly pressing against each other. The kiss lasted a long time. It had been so long since they’d last been together that each needed reassurance of the other’s presence. 

Once kiss would not be enough; there were certainly more to come in the very near future, but first, once that initial kiss was over, they held each other, Dea’s head tucked under Gwynplaine’s chin. They weren’t holding each other tightly. There was no need. Each was pressing as close to the other as possible, neither wanting to pull away. 

Gwynplaine closed his eyes. 

For the first time in his life, he thought not of the future of his country or of his people, but of his own future, of what Gwynplaine Trelaw might do with his life. 

Soon he must return to the capital, but Dea could come with him. It wouldn’t be appropriate for them to stay in the same house, but if he could persuade her father to travel to the capital… he could visit her, present her to the queen, court her in the way that she deserved. 

They would have a future together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, Ursus is concerned that Gwynplaine is going to exploit Dea. The thing with the prince and the lamp is book canon.
> 
> I think that when Dea introduces them to each other, Ursus is going to be quite wary, right up until Gwynplaine has his first Social Justice RantTM, after which point Ursus is just, “Do the two of you want a summer wedding or are you going to make me wait until next spring?”
> 
> I don’t think that Gwynplaine is completely free of his self-consciousness regarding his appearance, but I do think that he’s in a better place than he was, and he’s got people around him who are supportive enough that his mental state will improve over time.
> 
> I watched clips of Gwynplaine and Dea kissing quite a lot while writing this chapter. Y’know. For research.


End file.
